Finally, Privacy is in the Spotlight

For the past year, it feels like I’ve been on a personal crusade about digital privacy and how people need to pay more attention to how much information they disclose online. But in many ways, it been like whistling into the wind because there was so much enthusiasm about social media and sharing information and content.

I thought maybe it was just my own personal biases or perhaps my view that privacy is still important was out of step with how the digital world is evolving. When you’re going against the grain, it can be disconcerting when everyone else doesn’t seem to be worried about what seemed to be an important issue.

But now it seems the world has finally caught on to privacy. You can probably give WikiLeaks credit for thrusting the spotlight on privacy. Suddenly, people seem to be looking at privacy differently. They have realized that Facebook’s privacy two-step, Google’s plans to photograph everything, and the dangers of broadcasting your location to the world via location-based services actually have a downside. ReadWriteWeb has even declared privacy to be one of the top trends of 2010.

My reaction is: What took everyone so long?

Seriously. There is so much giddy excitement about being open and transparent, too many people have happily surrendered their privacy by disclosing everything and anything about what they’re doing, thinking or going.

The biggest culprit is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who idealistically believes that being more open will somehow make the world a better place. That’s easy to say when the growth of your business hinges on disclosing more information so advertisers have more opportunities to target consumers with eerily relevant offers.

What has been fascinating is how so many members of the media and blogosphere have gone along for the ride, enthusiastically promoting all these new privacy-killing online services while pretty much ignoring how they have been waging a steady attack on our privacy.

Maybe WikiLeaks has managed to turn the tide. Maybe we’ve finally reached a point in time when more people will start to seriously explore privacy and examine the kind of information they disclose to the world. Maybe I’m being too optimistic but here’s hoping we’re on the verge of a pro-privacy trend.

Here are some of previous posts about privacy:

- Is the digital pendulum finally swing back?
- The downsides and dangers of geo-location
- Facebook should give up on privacy